


The Merchant of Death

by F-117 Nighthawk (F117_Nighthawk)



Category: Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: And he just wants to save people, Extremis Tony Stark, Gen, Hurt Tony Stark, I might write a version of the last scene from the others POV we'll see how break treats me, Infinity Gems, Infinity War, Iron Man 1, Iron Man 2, Personification of Death, Possible Character Death, Post-Avengers (2012), Post-Avengers: Age of Ultron (Movie), Post-Captain America: Civil War (Movie), Temporary Character Death, Tony Stark Has A Heart, Tony Stark Has Issues, Tony Stark Needs a Hug, Tony Stark Still Has Arc Reactor, Tony Stark-centric, final status up to interpretation, possibly
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-18
Updated: 2017-12-18
Packaged: 2019-02-12 21:06:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,730
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12968433
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/F117_Nighthawk/pseuds/F-117%20Nighthawk
Summary: Merchant: a person or company involved in wholesale trade, especially one dealing with foreign countries or supplying merchandise to a particular trade.Death: the action or fact of dying or being killed; the end of the life of a person or organism; the destruction or permanent end of something; the personification of the power that destroys lifeThe Merchant of Death was a bit of a misnomer.





	The Merchant of Death

**Author's Note:**

> I keep meaning to write fluff but I watched Iron Man yet again last weekend and the Infinity War trailer is still slowly killing me and will be until May and uhhhhhhh  
> yeah.

_Merchant: a person or company involved in wholesale trade, especially one dealing with foreign countries or supplying merchandise to a particular trade._

_Death: the action or fact of dying or being killed; the end of the life of a person or organism; the destruction or permanent end of something; the personification of the power that destroys life_

 

Tony’s earliest memory was of a woman in black. Her hair was darker than shadows, her cloak the color of a black hole. What little else he could see of her was bone-white. She stood over his bed in the middle of the night, staring down at him. He stared up, unable to move. He knew she was saying something to him, but he couldn’t make it out. Between blinks his bed at home and the woman were replaced with a hospital bed and Aunt Peggy sitting anxiously next to him.

 

Sometimes he dreamed of the woman in black. She was always standing over his bed, staring down at him. She mostly appeared when he was badly injured after a kidnapping attempt, or when Howard had one too many drinks. She appeared the night after his parents died, with one simple difference: her hand running through his hair.

 

The first time she spoke to him he almost wished she hadn’t.

 

The pain was unbearable, stabbing, throbbing, hot pain searing through his chest. He drifted in and out of consciousness, unable to stop his screaming. He had a vague awareness of people hovering over him, doing something to where the pain was. They were talking in some language he couldn’t understand, holding him down, yelling to each other, and one of them _stabbed_ him with something and he lost his hold on consciousness completely.

Or maybe he didn’t. He was lying on a bed in the cave. It was dark, so so so dark, he couldn’t see anything further than a few feet in front of his face. He groaned and tried to roll over, only to discover he couldn’t. Frowning, he tried to feel around but couldn’t move his hands.

“Oh no you don’t,” a voice said. Tony managed to flinch, turning his head towards the source of the voice.

The woman was there, sitting on the side of the bed. “You’re not moving, little one. If you move, you’ll end up in the Realm of the Dead, and I am not letting you.”

He tried to talk to her, to ask where he was, who she was, why moving would end him up in the Realm of the Dead, was he dead, but he couldn’t move his lips.

The woman smiled and leaned forward, brushing her hand through his hair in a soothing motion. “You can’t die yet, my little Merchant. You have a very special destiny.”

Suddenly there was light, a weight in his chest, and a tube in his lungs.

 

Tony didn’t know why he was still alive at this point. He had so many lives on his hands, so much blood. His company was not the company it should be. It should have been _helping people,_ not selling weapons to terrorists under the table. How had he not seen this? He was the CEO of the most powerful company in the _world,_ and he was using that position to kill people? How many lives did he have on his hands? How many innocents had died? _Why had he let this happen?_ He had no right to be alive when countless others more deserving had died by his hands.

The woman seemed to hover as he walked over a sand dune and saw her. “You have a reason, little one. Do not forget it.”

She was replaced with the sound of a helicopter buzzing overhead.

 

When Pepper threatened to quit on him, he told her all he had been thinking in the desert, and remembered what the woman had said. Maybe there was some truth in her repeated appearances.

“I shouldn’t be alive, unless it was for a reason.”

What reason, he didn’t know. But he was certain that this time, he was at least on the right path.

 

Tony was pushed up and sideways from the force of the blast, getting slammed into the wall of the roof. He tumbled until he came to rest right by the edge of the hole in the roof and watched as Ob—Stane fell into the reactor. The world blinked in and out, hazy around the edges. He knew the arc reactor in his chest was low on power, dangerously so. There was no way he was going to survive this.

Between blinks the woman showed up again. She stood over him, shaking her head with an exasperated look.

He blinked and she was gone again and the void was filled with Pepper kneeling next to him, tears streaming down her face, talking to someone on the phone. “Pepper,” he croaked.

She looked at him with obvious relief and extended a hand, running it through his hair soothingly. “Don’t worry, we’re getting you to SHIELD medical.”

 

She appeared in his dreams again and again over the next several months, when he collapsed from exhaustion after hours upon hours of testing elements to replace palladium. Each time she was sitting next to him, a tired look on her face, a hand running through his hair. She was the one constant as he pushed people away, certain he was dying.

 

The next time, he got to talk to her.

 

He grimaced in pain, feeling the arc reactor lose power as he pushed the suit further than he had ever before. It didn’t matter, the pain didn’t matter, all that mattered was the nuke got in the portal. He pushed and pushed, up and up and up up up up up until JARVIS’s voice sputtered out, his HUD flickered into nothingness, and the suit’s propulsion failed. He moved his arms just enough to let go of the nuke and watched as it careened towards the collection of asteroids that made up the Chitauri homeland. He felt surprisingly calm, considering that he couldn’t breathe, drowning in a sea of stars and nothingness. Normally, he felt, this would be cause for a panic attack. But he was so tired, and maybe he could just close his eyes......

He opened his eyes when he felt something tugging on his limbs and found the woman, hovering in space in front of him. He stared at her for a minute and blurted out “Why do you keep appearing?”

She sent him a glare. “Because you, my little Merchant, need to stop being reckless.”

“Who are you? Why do you keep calling me your “merchant?””

She didn’t move for what felt like forever. “I suppose your world usually has a different manifestation of me. I am Mistress Death.”

Tony’s face paled. He tried to scramble back, but her cloak lashed out and bound him in place. “What do you want with me? _Why am I your merchant?”_

“Don’t worry your pretty blue heart, little one. I’ve saved your life more times than I can count. I have no desire for my Merchant to die before his task is compete.”

He struggled against her cloak, but soon gave up, sensing it was futile. “I’m not your merchant. I’m not killing any more.”

She tilted her head. “But that is not what my Merchant does.”

“Then what _does_ your merchant do, because I’m pretty sure “The Merchant of Death” is gonna be selling _death,_ not anything else, and I refuse to sell more death.”

“You save people,” she said simply.

He gaped at her. _“Save people? I just committed XENOCIDE, and you’re saying I save people?”_ The realization that yes, he had likely just committed xenocide, was a sudden, hurtful thing, and he burst into hysterical laughter. “How am I _saving people._ I’ve never managed to save a single person in my life. Maybe I _am_ the Merchant of Death ‘cause killing people seems to be all I’m ever capable of.”

She waited for him to calm down slightly, for the crazed laughter shaking his incorporeal form to dissipate. “Thanos is trying to shift the Balance. By killing the Chitauri, you have saved countless lives. Not just Midgardian, but other worlds. You Avengers are the only beings I have found capable of fighting him. And, sooner or later, he is going to stage an assault on your world. There are too many powerful things here for him not to. I need someone here capable of killing him, capable of righting the Balance.”

“And you think I’m all that.”

She tilted her head again. “Are you not? You are an engineer. You build and create. You are capable of so much, doing so much good, saving so many lives. Your Avengers are capable of protecting, yes, but only _you_ are capable of _creating._ And that is what I need. Every life saved is one that will prevent the Balance from tipping.”

He stared at her. “I’m glad someone thinks so highly of me,” he said dryly, “because I can guarantee you that no one else thinks that.”

She closed her eyes. “Well. Maybe they will prove you wrong.”

There was a roar and suddenly he was on the streets of New York, Hulk roaring at him, Thor zapping his chest with Mjolnir, Rogers with the most relieved look on his face.

 

He worked to build the Avengers into a team, a team that was capable of protecting the world when it needed it, of dealing with superhuman threats that started popping up all over the globe. He turned Stark Industries into the only force in clean energy. He worked with Bruce to build new medical equipment, capable of more accurately and quickly identifying illnesses and problems. He built and built and built, creating new and wondrous things. But it still _wasn’t enough._ How did he know that the Avengers were capable of protecting the people? They could not be everywhere at once. The threat that Death had promised haunted his nightmares, waking him up, dragging him out of bed to build more, to build _better._ But he knew, oh he knew, that whatever he did wasn’t going to be enough.

 

He only met Death once between then and the Ultron Incident. He was underwater, trapped under a thousand tons of rubble, the remnants of his house. She reached out a hand and pulled him out, and suddenly he was careening through the sky in Tennessee with low power and JARVIS yelling at him to _please wake up, Sir._

 

He thought, maybe, they did prove him wrong.

 

“FRIDAY, do I have a path up to the helicarrier?”

“No, Boss, you’re gonna have to outrun the debris. Up is not a good idea.”

Swearing under his breath, Tony weaved and dodged through the sudden asteroid field that was the ruins of Novi Grad, Sokovia. Huge chunks of rock and building hurtled through the sky, slamming into the ground around him. One slammed into his left arm and sent him spinning, out of control, altitude dipping dramatically. He managed to rise a bit, to get over the edge of the crater, before a huge slab of concrete fell directly on top of him, crashing him to the ground and burying him under it. He heard FRIDAY yelling, felt Extremis doing its work to fix him, and slipped into unconsciousness.

He woke up an indeterminate amount of time later to find her standing over him. He looked away, unable to look her in the eye with the weight she had put upon him last time they had spoken. He had failed, completely and utterly. Everything he had created did nothing but kill.

“I’m sorry,” he wrenched out, “I can’t—Everything—I’m not meant to save people. Everything I do kills and kills and I _can’t—”_

“Shhhhhh.” She cut him off, hand carding through his hair. “This was not your fault.”

“How was it not?” he cried. “I built Ultron, I made the input parameters, I provided the materials, the experience, everything necessary for _destruction.”_

“Ultron was not your fault,” she said sharply. “You provided the initial parameters, yes, but it was an AI. Its parameters grew beyond what you gave it. You gave it orders for a safe and peaceful planet. And _that_ is what it misconstrued. It saw you humans as something preventing a peaceful world, not understanding that it is your passion and ability to survive that makes you so useful. It found the materials itself, it drew on flawed experience. These innocents are not on your hands.”

His eyes were full of furious tears. “Why do you keep saving me? I’ve failed, completely and utterly. How many lives were your forced to take today? How many innocents? I’m worth nothing compared to the thousands and thousands I’ve killed. _Why do you keep saving me if I keep failing at my job?”_

She had a quizzical look. “But you have not failed. You are a _builder,_ little one. You have built so much in the past years, saved so many. With every life something you created saves, the Balance corrects itself. And you have created The Vision, something more powerful, more capable of saving than anything else you have created. Think of what it has done today.”

“Destroyed a city? Killed thousands in the shockwave of it crashing back to Earth? Robbed thousands of families of siblings, parents, children?”

“No. It destroyed Ultron, it saved as many as it could. And that, my Merchant, is all I ask.”

He felt hot tears trailing down his cheeks. “I haven’t, though. I could have saved so many more if I just tried harder, if I thought a little more, if I flew a little faster— _I’m not worth saving.”_

“You are not a protector, little Merchant. You are a _creator._ And you are worth saving.”

He let out a hysterical giggle. “No one thinks that.”

She sighed. “They will prove you wrong.”

He found himself in the medical bay of the helicarrier, Vision hovering by his side, Rhodey and Nat asleep in chairs next to him.

 

They didn’t prove him wrong.

 

He felt the cold seeping into the suit, but knew the damaged arc reactor was going to kill him before he could succumb to hypothermia. Extremis couldn’t save him this time. It was desperately trying to keep him warm despite the rips in the armor, his lack of helmet, his lack of _power._ He watched with morbid fascination as the arc reactor flickered and sputtered, its casing shattered, leaking plasma all over the armor. His comm was fried and he hoped that FRIDAY had at least managed to tell Pepper where he was. Where he was going to die.

He desperately hoped she wouldn’t tell her what had happened. How Ste—How Rogers had smashed his shield into the armor, ripping it to pieces, how scared he had been that Rogers was going to bring it down on his neck. There was no way Death was going to save him after decapitation.

“I could save you from that. It would be annoying, yes, but possible.” He moved his head and saw Death walking through the bunker. Her cloak swirled in the snow, a black hole stark against the pure white. “Hypothermia and a lack of heartbeat? Much easier.”

“Come to save your favorite failure of a Merchant again?”

“How many times must I tell you you haven’t failed?”

“Well, I certainly haven’t succeeded.”

She stopped next to him and sat down in the snow. Idly, he noticed how she didn’t make an imprint. “You haven’t failed. Thousands upon millions of lives have been saved because of you.”

He snorted and moved to stare at the ceiling of the bunker again. “Mind showing me where?”

“When you stopped weapons production. New York. Sokovia.”

“None of those count. I killed more than I saved.”

“You are like the governments of this world. You do not look at the what-ifs, not when it comes to your own worth. If you hadn’t been there, New York would be a pile of nuclear waste, this world would be overrun by the Chitauri, and Thanos would have gained four Infinity Stones in one fell swoop. Who else would be there to divert that nuclear warhead?”

“Who else would have been there to commit xenocide, you mean.”

_“Who else could build your suit, who else would be willing to potentially sacrifice themselves to save countless others.”_

He looked over at her again. “You know, for being the personification of Death, you sure don’t enjoy it much.”

She growled. “I do my job for the balance of the universe. If I did not exist, there would be too much life. I do not enjoy my job as much as Oblivion does, but I see the necessity. But I also see the necessity of life. Which is why I have _you._ I did not come here to debate whether you have been doing your job, because contrary to what you believe, you have. I came here to deliver a warning.”

“What sort of warning? “Do your job or I’m not saving you next time?””

“No. He is coming.”

If Tony could have frozen any more than he already was, being a lifeless corpse and all, he would have. “Thanos?”

“Indeed. Prepare this world. Prepare your team. Prepare yourself, for you have a part bigger than the rest.”

With that, he found himself in a hospital bed, an exhausted Pepper on one side, Vision and Rhodey seated on the other.

 

For two years, Tony did all he could to make sure Earth was ready for an invasion. He kept the reason to himself, not ready to be branded a paranoid, PTSD ridden threat to humanity. He needed the governments of the world to trust him, to give him the ability to protect them. But he knew, oh he knew, that whatever he did wasn’t going to be enough. Then Bruce crash landed in Doctor Strange’s Sanctum Sanctorum, Thor arrived on a spaceship with its crew who called themselves the Guardians of the Galaxy, and everything went to _shit._

 

They weren’t prepared.

 

His chest heaved with exertion as he dashed out of range of yet another beam of energy. He didn’t know where the Guardians had ended up, where Strange was, where Panther and the Soldier and Ant-Man and Wasp and the other Captain were. The Witch and Falcon and Rhodey and Peter had dropped off his radar. Vision was gone. The other original Avengers were small blips on his radar, working their way towards him as best they could. He himself was desperately trying not to die.

Somehow, despite all their best efforts, Thanos had gotten every single Infinity Stone. Tony didn’t know quite how he had ended up the one closest to Thanos, but he was the prime target for the energy blasts radiating outwards from the Infinity Gauntlet.

If pressed, he would have admitted that most of the reason he was trying not to die at this point was he couldn’t bear to face Death’s disappointment. He had failed, completely and utterly. He had been forced to watch as Thanos pulled the Mind Stone out of Vision’s head, killing him instantly. He’d screamed for him, screamed and blasted his way towards Thanos, intending on taking him out before the final stone was placed into the Gauntlet.

He’d failed.

Being used as target practice for the Mad Titan wasn’t his idea of a good time; he needed to get a shot in. Before he could get the words out, FRIDAY sensed his intention over Extremis and scanned Thanos, looking for a pattern, anything that could let him get a shot in. She didn’t come up with anything.

“Iron Man, get out of there!” someone screamed at him over the comm after a near miss grazed his boots and sent him spinning.

“Can’t,” he gasped out, brute forcing his way out of the spin to twist around and up to avoid another beam. “I’m not leaving ’til this motherfucker’s taken out.”

“Tony, there’s no way you can beat—“

“BOSS, WAT—“ FRIDAY was cut off as a blast from the Infinity Gauntlet slammed into his left side, his comm dissolving into a screech of static. He felt the impact of what was probably a wall or three as the force of the blast sent him crashing backwards. He slammed into something and fell to the ground, then blacked out.

He couldn’t see anything but a dark cloud around him. “My Merchant,” her raspy voice filtered through the silence.

“I’m sorry. I’ve failed you. We can’t beat him, not even with everything we’ve done.”

“Not yet. Take my power, little one. You are a builder, so build this universe a better future.”

She appeared then, kneeling over him. She placed a hand on the arc reactor and he felt a surge of power tear through him. It was like when he first put in the new arc reactor, but stronger, so much power. It flew through him, fixing everything that Extremis never would have been able to, sending a power surge through the arc reactor and suit. He gasped and bucked, life surging back through him. Above him, Death smiled, said “Live up to your name while you’re at it,” and disappeared.

He stood like a newborn fawn, leaning against the steel wall that had finally stopped his flight.

“You okay, Boss?” FRIDAY’s tone was worried. She had seen this happen to him before, but nothing had ever been this severe.

“Yeah, gimme a sec, Fri.” He glanced down to take stock of how damaged his armor was and noticed that the arc reactor wasn’t so much glowing as sucking in light like a black hole. He let a wry grin appear. Another present from Death. FRIDAY popped up a damage report over Extremis and he winced. His left gauntlet was completely gone; he wouldn’t be surprised if that blast had disintegrated his arm. Most of the armor was damaged in some way and he was a little miffed that Death has fixed him but not his armor. How was he supposed to fight Thanos when his only working thruster was his right boot? Most of his weapons were offline, except the chest RT and how _that_ was working when the reactor seemed to have turned into a mini black hole he didn’t know.

Frustrated, he pushed off the wall and noticed how the shadows seemed to follow him. Frowning, he turned around in a circle. The shadows stayed even at angles they shouldn’t have. He grinned. Maybe he didn’t _need_ more than those two repulsors. He flicked his wrist and the shadows followed his command, flying forward and wrapping around the rubble in front of him. He lifted a hand and the rubble and shadows lifted with it. “This is fun. FRIDAY, see if you can record any readings of this while I’m fighting. I wanna look at this more.”

He could sense that if she had eyes FRIDAY would’ve been rolling them. _Ever the engineer,_ drifted over Extremis, which he took for an acknowledgement of his request. Flicking his wrist again, he sent the piece of rubble flying off a ways. “FRIDAY, put what Extremis can spare on the comm and flight power. Let’s see how much we can get back while I finish fixing.” He tested his flight capabilities, the boot lifting him, albeit shakily. Halfway through his left boot sputtered to life.

Tony winced as Extremis fixed his comm, causing feedback to screech against his eardrums. The sounds of battle had shifted closer, explosions and shouts revealing where the Avengers were now. Cap’s hard voice came over the comm, dishing out orders. His eyes widened as he realized they were fighting Thanos and he vaguely wondered how long he had been out. “Hulk, _be careful._ This guy’s gotta have a weak spot. Widow, sneak around the back. Thor, see if you can get above him. Iron M—” Cap audibly paused. The entire team was silent for a moment. Tony wanted to answer, but his body was still fixing itself (painfully, he might add) and he was going to be no use to the team yet. “Hawkeye, pattern analysis. See if FRIDAY’s online to help you.” She wasn’t online. Her Styx protocol would keep her silent until he was somewhat operational again.

He took a shaky step towards the battle, through the hole he had created in multiple walls. He needed to get closer if he was going to be any help before....

Before Thanos became too much for them to handle.

Before they all died because he wasn’t there to help.

He _refused_ to let his vision become reality. He was here to create a _future,_ and _it was not going to be that one._

He was the Merchant of Death, and she had told him to live up to his name.

Determined, he stepped forward, and again, and again, and again. He could see the battle through the walls he had crashed through. Thanos had the Infinity Gauntlet raised, blasting at the Avengers as fast as it could recharge. He was grateful Thanos didn’t seem to have figured out that the Gauntlet could do more than blast people to bits during however long he had been out. Time travel shenanigans was the last thing they needed right now.

“Boss, you seem to be healed enough for Protocol Styx to be rescinded.”

He watched as Cap rolled out of the way of one beam and ended up square in the middle of his field of vision. He was coughing, struggling to get off the ground from what was probably exhaustion and pain. Tony watched as Thanos charged the Infinity Gauntlet again and aimed it at Cap.

“Permission granted,” he growled, and took off.

Time seemed to slow down. Or maybe it actually did, he didn’t know. He watched in horror as Thanos triggered the Gauntlet and the beam came speeding at Cap. There was slow-motion screaming over the comm, begging Cap to move, to get out of the way, they couldn’t lose both of them. He gritted his teeth; he wasn’t going to be able to get to Cap before the beam hit him. Well, _he_ wasn’t, but maybe something else could....

With great force of will he grabbed Cap’s shadow and _pulled—_

The blast slammed into the shield he had created as time sped back up. Cap glanced up and almost fell back when he saw the shield of shadows. With a yell, Tony flew through the shield and let it drop just as the blast dissipated. He slammed into Thanos, twisting around to hit him with the full force of both his boot repulsors and bound off, doing another flip in the air and landing where the Mad Titan had been standing in his signature three point landing. The asphalt beneath him cracked as he landed, a spider-web of outward force.

Utter silence reigned for a moment. “Tony?” Cap’s voice broke the silence. It was shaky and disbelieving. He could see Natasha and Bruce (hulked out, of course) behind where Thanos had landed, staring at him. Clint was somewhere on his left in his peripheral, staring as well. Thor was hovering in the air, electricity sparking around him, frozen in shock.

Tony was well aware of how he looked. The armor on his left was practically nonexistent; arm armor and undersuit completely gone, a giant gap on his torso that had even ripped through his undersuit, boot crushed and ripped, helmet dented, faceplate ripped in half along the diagonal. His right side had impact damage all along it, crushing and tears. His skin was glowing slightly with Extremis, bright orange obscuring his brown eyes. Wisps of shadows curled around him, emanating from the arc reactor, which still looked more like a black hole than its normal soothing blue.

He straightened and turned to look at Cap with a grin. “The one and only.”

“How are you not dead?” Clint whispered. “We’ve seen what those blasts do to people. _How are you not dead?”_

Thanos had managed to sit up, staring at him with the rest of them. _“You should be dead,”_ he hissed.

“Oh, don’t worry, you got me good,” he said, walking jauntily over to Thanos with a grin, “but I don’t stay down.”

With a roar Thanos raised the Infinity Gauntlet and shot at him. Tony raised his still armored hand and the shadows rose with it. He watched as the sustained blast _deflected,_ straight into Thanos, his roar changing from fury to howls of pain. He let the shield drop when the blast stopped and staggered forward slightly.

Thanos was on his knees, holding his arms over the hole the blast had created in his stomach. “Who _are_ you?”

Tony gave Thanos a shit-eating grin as he leaned down over him. “Tony Stark, Merchant of Death.”

Thanos’s eyes widened and he shrunk back in fear.

“Mm, you recognize that? Well, let me tell you, she. Is Pissed.”

“You can’t—You’re not—You can’t kill me. You’re no match for the power of the Infinity Stones. You would need something stronger than a _Celestial—”_

“Do I not?” When Thanos simply blinked at him he straightened, spreading his arms. Death’s shadows increased their speed and number, creating armor where he was lacking, coating it where he wasn’t, going through him and bolstering his body itself. “You know her, Thanos, so tell me: _do. I. Not.”_

Tony let Thanos struggle to his feet. “She would not give a mere _mortal_ her favor. I _refuse._ What makes you so much more appealing than me? Her Merchant _kills.”_

He let out a harsh laugh. “Then not only do you have the definition of the title wrong, but you haven’t been paying attention.” With that he activated the chest RT and blasted Thanos backwards. The Avengers, who had been in a wide circle around them, moved in to attack, but stopped when Tony barked “Wait! Don’t you dare get in range, I don’t know if I can revive you.”

“What?” came a chorus of confused voices over the comm. He didn’t get a chance to explain as Thanos staggered to his feet and with a roar blasted him again. He barely got the shield up in time, arms crossed in front of his face with the shadows swirling around him like a cocoon. The blast didn’t deflect this time; Tony wondered what he had done differently for that to happen. As soon as he could see again he moved like he would to shoot a repulsor at Thanos and a whip of shadows flicked out, wrapping around the Mad Titatn’s ungloved hand. He pulled and the titan stumbled forward, growling. Thanos shot another blast at him but Tony managed to get the shield up faster this time and ended up _absorbing_ the power. The titan leaned back, eyes wide, and Tony grinned. He directed the power into the arc reactor and it seemed to glow with the shadows, more and more emanating from it, swirling around him like matter around a black hole.

_“My turn.”_

The blast slammed into Thanos, destroying the arms he raised in a futile attempt to protect himself. The Mad Titan collapsed on the ground, the Infinity Gauntlet clattering to rest between them. Tony staggered backwards from the blast, but quickly righted himself and stomped his way over to Thanos. Standing above the would-be-conqueror, he called Death’s power around him again.

“I don’t understand....why would she choose you? Why? You are not a killer.”

Tony narrowed his eyes and let the power build. “I am. I have killed more than I have saved, no matter what she thinks. But that is not why she chose me. The Merchant of Death deals in death, yes, but I _save_ it. Unlike you. You tipped the Balance, and for that, you need to be dealt with.”

Thanos gave a weak laugh. “If you save lives, then how will you kill me?”

“Because she told me to live up to my name.” With that, he moved like he was shoving a double repulsor directly into Thanos’s face and let the power _out._ He stood and watched, arms still extended, as Thanos screamed. He watched the light leave his eyes, felt the spirit release its mortal form as Death’s unforgiving arms took it. He released the power then, stumbling backwards, light-headed. He was suddenly really tired. Arc-reactor-failing tired.

“Tony! Tony, _holy shit.”_

“Swearing? For me, Cap? Never thought I’d see the day,” he mumbled, rubbing at his exposed eye with his ungloved hand.

“I’ve been swearing at and for you since you got slammed through fifty walls.”

Tony turned around, filtering the rest of the others’ commentary out for the moment. There was still something that needed to be done. He was so tired, so so tired, he just needed this to be _over._ Managing to only stumble a little, he made his way over to where the Infinity Gauntlet had landed.

“Tony, don’t pick that up,” Natasha said.

He looked over his shoulder at the other five, gathered around him, then back down at the Gauntlet. “I have to.” He picked it up and held it in his armored hand for a moment, staring at it. All five Infinity Gems were still in it, pulsing with color and power. His eye caught on the Time Gem; it seemed to be glowing brighter than the rest.

“What are you doing!”

“Doing.” he slipped the gauntlet onto his left, unarmored hand. “My.” he reared back elbow above and behind his head. “Job.” and slammed his fist into the ground.

A flash of light radiated outwards from the Gauntlet, impossibly bright, hiding everything from view. Then the shadows came in, surrounding him. He was stuck in time, stuck in Death’s embrace. He was so tired. He just wanted everyone he cared about to be safe and alive. He closed his eyes and swayed before a gentle hand touched his face. He opened his eyes to see Death standing in front of him. She gently took his hand and removed the Infinity Gauntlet.

Tony closed his eyes again. “I’m so tired.”

“Then rest, my Merchant.”

And so he did.

**Author's Note:**

> I might write a version of that final scene from Cap/Nat/Clint's POV (we'll see how break treats me). Like I feel that it's good this way purely from Tony's POV, but there are some things in my head in that scene that Tony doesn't see 'cause he's, well, dead for half of it, and I kinda want to write the others freaking out about the Merchant of Death thing. That part has a set opinion for what happens to Tony at the end, though, and I want to leave this up to interpretation whether he dies or not after pushing the reset button.


End file.
